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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Oh, my! Tonight's supper was especially good! I will share some of the details with you.

We baked a whole five-pound chicken in the NuWave oven, which only took less than an hour. Of course, it had to be emptied of the liver, etc., rinsed off, and patted dry. Then the wings were tied together and the legs were tied together with upholstery thread because we can never seem to locate any one of at least three packets of kitchen twine. The chicken was then coated with olive oil and sprinkled generously with poultry seasoning and trocomare (a sea salt and herb mixture). It was baked for 20 minutes upside down, turned over, and baked another 15 minutes.

Brown rice was prepared in the small rice cooker.

The best part - I think - was the salad. One large avocado, one tomato, one peeled cucumber, and three spring onions were chopped for a salad. A small amount of once-fresh cilantro from the freezer was chopped and added to the mix, as was about two ounces of Italian salad dressing. This was stirred and chilled before it was eaten.

Click on the picture to drool this meal:

One item not pictured is the dessert we made. Two bananas, one cup of fresh blueberries, half a can of coconut milk, and several slices of fresh ginger were blended at high speed in our VitaMix. This was poured into three dessert bowls and placed in the freezer. When we removed the bowls from the freezer, the mixture was not frozen, but it was almost the consistency of a pudding or custard. I could really taste the ginger, but DH only tasted the bananas. Neither of us could taste what the other could taste the most. That surprised me.

Monday, July 18, 2011

We did a little crafting today. Items used for this project included a canvas stretcher frame, spray paint (the frame has actually been painted for several weeks), chicken wire, tin snips or wire cutters, pliers, staple gun, nails, and a hammer. No instructions, just pictures of the results:

We got a good start to pulling dead leaves from the tomato plants, and we pulled out the old lettuce, radish, and onion plants. Then we filled in the garden with four bags of new dirt and layered in a bag of cow manure and some hydrated lime. As you can see, the back yard needs to be mowed - again! - because it's actually been raining here almost every day:

Under the shade canopy, you can see that three pepper plants and a stevia plant survived the clean-up:

Here are two sweet potato vines that we transplanted from water cups over the kitchen sink:

We have cooked sweet potato leaves in a stir-fry, and they get gummy like okra, although they are supposed to be very nutritious. I suppose we will have to try that again if these vines grow well in our garden.

I have a friend who has started some seeds from a loquat tree. Once we figure out where to put one in our yard, we will adopt one of her plants. I prefer to grow plants that can be eaten. I'm all for Free Food!